UPDATE: Gray Media. and Allen Media Group on May 1 closed on their just-approved transactions, described below, for $171 million, plus working capital adjustments. In particular, Gray acquired stations located in three new markets for Gray on March 26; Gray acquired stations in the remaining seven overlap markets today.
In August 2025, Gray Media confirmed that it had reached an agreement to buy 10 full-power broadcast TV stations from the Byron Allen-controlled Allen Media Group in a deal valued at $171 million. Closing the deal, which would bring Gray into three new markets, was originally expected to close by the end of last year.
Then came a petition to deny from DirecTV. On Thursday, the “Acting Chief” of the FCC’s Media Bureau denied the petition.
DirecTV made the filing on November 18, 2025, with additional informal objections arriving at the FCC from Georgia Cable Association, Illinois Broadband & Cable Association, Indiana Cable and Broadband Association, and Tennessee Cable & Broadband Association; Business Forward; a coalition of Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander communities; a civil rights coalition; and Chris Ruddy-led cable TV news outlet Newsmax.
Neither those objections nor the petition to deny could sway Alex Sanjenis, who has assumed the Media Bureau leadership post from Erin Boone. In his first significant act in the role, he granted Gray Media necessary rule waivers to make the transaction happen, “subject to the divestiture Gray has committed to make.”
That would see Gray Media committing to divest WISE-TV in the Fort Wayne, Ind. DMA “no later than two years following the closing should the Commission grant the requested assignments, provided that a waiver of the Local TVO Rule remains necessary under the Commission’s rules at such time.”
In granting the applications, Sanjenis said, “After carefully and thoroughly reviewing the record, we find that there are no material public interest harms arising from the transaction. We further find that certain transaction-related public interest benefits are likely to be realized, especially given Gray’s reaffirmed commitment to “strong local news and information programming.”
That effectively served as a “yeah … that’s nice” response to DirecTV’s insistence that consolidation will yield higher retransmission consent fees for the DBS provider. In its petition, DirecTV asserted that the Gray-AMG deal would bring “direct economic harm due to higher input prices that it claims it will have to pay as a result of the transaction.”
This is an assumption, rather than a stated fact, and has yet to win over the Commission.
As previously reported, the properties AMG is selling to Gray Media are as follows:
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WAAY-TV in Huntsville, Ala.
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WSIL-TV in Paducah, Ky.-Cape Girardeau, Mo.-Harrisburg, Ill.
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WEVV-TV in Evansville, Ind.
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WFFT-TV in Fort Wayne, Ind.
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WCOV-TV in Montgomery, Ala.
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KADN-TV in Lafayette, La.
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WTVA-TV in Columbus, Ga.-Tupelo, Ms.
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WREX-TV in Rockford, Ill.
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WTHI-TV in Terre Haute, Ind.
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WLFI-TV in West Lafayette, Ind.
Once the deal closes, Gray will own two full-power TV stations in Huntsville; Paducah; Evansville, Ind.; Lafayette, La.; and Rockford, Ill. Furthermore, it will have three full-power TV stations in the Fort Wayne, Ind., and Montgomery-Selma, Ala., markets.
For Sanjenis, a triopoly in Montgomery is worthy of regulatory approval. “[S]pecial circumstances warrant grant of the waiver request to permit Gray to own three full power stations and that such degree of common ownership will not hurt competition in the Montgomery-Selma, AL DMA, but bolster it,” he said.
For Sanjenis, becoming acting Media Bureau Chief comes after he previously served as Deputy Chief of the FCC’s Media Bureau. Before that, he served as Media Advisor to then-Chairman Ajit Pai and as a staff attorney in the Media Bureau’s Audio Division, where he focused on a wide range of broadcast policy issues including the licensing of translator, noncommercial educational and low power FM stations.
